


Crisscrossing

by orphan_account



Category: Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Alternate Universe, Character Death, M/M, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-14
Updated: 2014-11-14
Packaged: 2018-02-25 09:22:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2616650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>time, space, and lifetimes cannot put a stop to this love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crisscrossing

It has been at least a hundred lives since you’ve slept, let alone had the opportunity to rest your eyes (constantly searching) or mind (endlessly racing). And though given a more or less fresh form each time, being constantly flung through time and space – through a multitude of lifetimes now too numerous to count – makes you weary. Furthermore, what you’ve come to realize is that attempting to escape into the blissful respite of slumber will only prematurely launch you into the next round of this maddening chase.

A million apologies, scattered through the ages, have not sufficed to mend what was broken during the first attempt. What, at the time, you believed to be your only chance. Then the next morning had come, and you were relieved in assuming that by some miracle you’d been given a reprieve.

Until the next morning came, along with a new face and story. And the next morning, another. And another. And yet another. And now from time to time, you finds yourself cursing the very name that is intended to someday serve as salvation, but currently contributes to the ceaseless torment.

Together you are apocalypse survivors, a king and a lowly knight, a sailor and a merman, forbidden lovers on a sinking ocean liner, a mafia prince and hostage, members of humanoid alien species on opposite sides of a cyber galactic war, 19th century revolutionaries. Once, you take an order as a barista only to find yourself looking into achingly recognizable eyes. Any situation imaginable and beyond, with countless more still to be lived.

By now, you have worn thousands of forms. Sometimes he is not a he at all, sometimes neither are you. Sometimes neither of you even identify as he or she. Fairly often, romantic and sexual orientations aren’t compatible. Regardless, you know when to keep searching or if simply moving on to the next phase would be better use of your endless time. No matter outward appearance, one glance and you always know when you find who you’re looking for.

And yet. Through all these lifetimes and differing circumstances. No success.

More often than not, there lacks even the faintest flicker of recognition in the face of the other, and you feel the sensation of defeat before it even begins. On other occasions though, your gazes meet for the briefest instant and result in a curious magnetism for the rest of the time.

Sometimes, there’s kissing. Maybe more. The most chaste of kisses. Frenzied, forbidden encounters that fog up your brain. Always without result. True love’s kiss has no magic here, other than the familiar, but ever wondrous rush that you feel [have always felt] being with him. It’s not the magic you need though - the kind to make him remember.

In yet other eons, the closeness to a breakthrough is palpable. The glow of memory in his eyes steadying into enlightened remembrance, making you hope more than you know you should. Because of course, just when you’re ready to relax into the seemingly inevitable fairytale ending, it’s too late.

The worst is when you have to watch him die. Your hands slipping apart as his life seeps into the icy Atlantic.  Crouching under the gentle moonlight in the middle of a desolate alley, cradling him as his bullet-riddled chest empties onto the asphalt. Watching as the blip on the monitor jarringly flat lines.

As for your own death, the miniscule fear you experience the first few times – that maybe this really is the end, that you have failed forever– has evaporated. When it happens, you close your eyes in surrender (if time permits such leisurely action), let your breathing grow shallower, anticipating and knowing that before long, you’ll be given – or tasked with another opportunity. One way or another, the illumination of life fades from one or both of you completely in some universes. For now.

Sometimes, you don’t wait. Because  _fuck it_  why not. There's really nothing to lose.

 _I love you_  tumbles from your lips as soon as you encounter him.

Then you wait, sighing, watching the hasty retreat. For the intensity, the desperation in your voice is too much. Still, you continue to hope that maybe next time, everything will fall into place.

But it never does the next time. It doesn’t. It hasn’t. Not yet. But it will. You continuously reassure yourself, no matter how hopeless it feels. It will. It has to.  _Someday_.

One day, your eyes blink open to a life that feels almost familiar, maybe.

It isn’t even noon yet when your best friend, Henry (he’s in most of the lives, in one form or another), drags you over to Jack’s for another backyard barbecue.

Trying not to hope to hard, you scan the faces already in attendance, but

_Where is he?_

After greeting all of this incarnation’s friends and not finding the connection, you resign yourself to the fact that this is another lifetime in which the initial meeting will come too late.

But then the gate swings open to permit two newcomers.

“This is my best friend,” the young woman gestures to her companion, and you hear the name in your head before she speaks it aloud.

_Darcy._

Because when

you whip around to get a better look,

_Could it be_

the familiar stranger’s gaze darts to - flits over - your face,

and your eyes meet, finally

_Yes, it could._

You both just know.


End file.
